Dr Conan Doyle in Edinburgh
Dr Conan Doyle in Edinburgh is an article published in the Edinburgh Evening News on 22 november 1893.
Report of a lecture "George Meredith, Novelist and Poet" given by Arthur Conan Doyle on 21 november 1893 at the Queen Street Hall (Edinburgh, UK).
Report
Dr A. Conan Doyle, the now famous novelist, lectured before the members of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution in Queen Street Hall last night on "George Meredith, Novelist and Poet." The hall was crowded. Dr Doyle said that if statistics could be taken in the various free libraries of the kingdom as to the relative popularity of the different novelists, he had not the slightest doubt that Meredith would stand very low indeed upon the list. If, on the other hand, novelists asked among themselves which of their brethren had had the most stimulating effect upon their own minds, he was certain that Meredith would come out at the head of the poll. To read Meredith, he confessed, was not a mere amusement. It was an intellectual exercise, a kind of spiritual dumb bell, by which one tried to develop his human powers. They found in Meredith's work a subtlety of thought, a delicacy of expression, and an insight into all human things which was unique among authors. Meredith was the novelists' novelist. Already, the lecturer thought, his influence among the younger generation of authors was the strongest influence there was. Meredith's mission was not so much to tell stories as to infuse fresh life into an art which was sadly in need of regeneration. He had turned away from the beaten track, and cleared a path for himself. If Meredith in meat had been too strong for the general public, Meredith in water had been most popular. The lecturer believed that Meredith would take his place after a time as the most original and most masterful writer of fiction of the latter half of the Victorian era. No one had aroused greater enthusiasm among those whom he had attracted than Meredith. Dr Doyle then passed under review the principal works of the novelist, and read selections from his work to elucidate his style. "Richard Feverel," he thought, the most popular and most symmetrically good of all Meredith's work. He was inclined to think that in the future the book would take its place with "Vanity Fair," "Esmond," and others. It was almost incredible that that great masterpiece was 20 years old before it passed into a second edition. In his opinion, never had love been treated so charmingly by any writer as in "Richard Feverel." Meredith had given new life to a subject which had been so done to death and mangled in our novels, that it had become a question to some as to whether it should be omitted altogether. From "Richard Feverel" a completely new set of British proverbs might be built up. "Evan Harrington," the lecturer thought in every way inferior to its predecessor, but it contained one character, the Countess, who, as a scheming woman, ranked next to Becky Sharp. Meredith was sometimes dull, and when he was so he was deadly dull. That was no doubt his chief fault. They read him for the intellectual pleasure which his style gave, and not for interest in the story. There was none of that throb of human life in Meredith which kept readers of Charles Reade out of bed till two in the morning. In reading Meredith, they felt the presence of an immense intellect ; but they were not quite certain whether the intellect had chosen the correct medium for its expression. In the age of Shakespeare Meredith would have been a great dramatist ; and in the reign of Queen Anne an essay-writer. Meredith appeared to have chosen the novel as his mode of expression because it happened to be the one most in vogue in the era in which he happened to live. Another very serious and obvious fault was that all Meredith's characters must be a mouthpiece to his wit. Perhaps the most distinctive feature of his style was his extraordinary command of simile. It was enough to say that Meredithian women were at the extreme pole to the Byronic women. They were robust in mind and body, with rude health and an excellent appetite. Meredith would have the sexes on an equality.
